The Internet abounds with competitions and prize schemes, whereby Internet users are afforded the opportunity to win a prize for performing a certain action, or in return for a payment. Some websites provide free games (after registration) that offer the opportunity to win prizes. Examples of such websites include iwinweekly.com, and iwon.com.
ePrize LLC offers a Pooled eDrawingsSM tool that allows companies to offer a targeted $50,000.00 prize each 90-days without paying for the full prize total. Many companies participate in the pool, but there is only one grand prize winner per quarter. The winning promotion is randomly selected each quarter from among participating companies, and a “Grand Prize” winner is randomly selected from that company's entrants.
It is also now possible to participate in many lotteries (e.g., local, state and national lotteries in Europe, Australia, Latin America and Asia) via the Internet. GTech Corporation, for example, administers a large number of online lotteries, and has developed certain technologies in this regard. Such lotteries are typically run by large organizations (e.g., governments) and are funded by the purchase of tickets by potential winners. The lottery prize can be a fixed percentage of receipts, with the organizers promising that the prize will be, for example, 50% of revenue. It will be accordingly appreciated that the size of the prize in lotteries often is dependent upon the popularity of the lottery, and the number of lottery tickets that can be sold. The ability of small organizations to participate in the running of lotteries has to date been hampered by their inability to attract a sufficient number of participants, to provide the required degree of organizational and financial confidence to potential lottery participants, and also the technical challenges that are posed in managing a lottery of any notable size. Dealing specifically with the technical challenges, the processing of the purchase of lottery tickets, the communication of information regarding the lottery (e.g., the total lottery prize), and also the distribution of lottery winnings all present a number of technical challenges. For example, the manual processing of lottery tickets, either purchased in person or online, presents a number of communication and processing technical challenges.
Further, Internet-based prize systems have to date typically operated as standalone systems. The integration of such prize systems with other systems also presents a number of technical hurdles.